I really like knowing I'm going to be married in less than three months. I'm really glad that there IS an end to the little details of wedding planning that won't matter the very next day. I'm grateful for everything we've completed so far and that we're in the "home stretch" of engagement.
But I have to admit, I have a small annoyance to share with you.
Engagement time has been a paradox for me. My freshman year of college a friend introduced me to "Uniformity with God's Will" by Saint Alphonsus Ligouri. The gist of the book is acceptance. The person in uniformity with God's will doesn't pray for good times, or even pray for hardships to suffer...they simply accept what is sent their way. Praying for God's will over all else. Engagement has been a struggle in this respect. I understand it's a temporary phase, and that it will have an end, but so many people imply that I should be so uberly fantastically out of this world excited for this to end. But it feels so wrong to pray for it to end. I'm supposed to be trying to live in the now. The now is not married life yet, the now is engaged single life, and I should be trying to embrace it...yet there's this pull from the world, and well-meaning fellow Christians, that suggest I should be just so ready to be on the other side of it. What keeps popping to my mind is, "Everything is grace." Marriage will be graced. But engagement is graced too. One of my favorite books I read my freshman year of college was Sacred Singleness by Leslie Ludy. She encouraged women to live now, in the single state of their lives, because God is forming them now...formation does not start in marriage. It has to start here. As excited as I am for marriage, I am in a completely beautiful part of my life. I don't want to be in it forever, but I also don't want to rush it. I just want to live it completely.
Now, don't get me wrong, the Church is so much better than the world in preparing me for the next step...marriage, what it entails, the struggles and beauty that will come along with it. I just am not sure how much I'm being ministered to here and now, so much as I'm being ministered to for a future event. I feel pulled, even a bit by my Church, to try to live in the now: "Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil" (Mt 6:34). Yet everything it's directing me toward in engagement is for a future date...and that CERTAINLY brings a lot of worry and planning and...unknown. I just wish there was a bit more ministry in marriage prep on how to take advantage of this time in engagement.
On to a lighter note, and speaking of weddings, I'm actually basically on schedule with everything. The past 2-3 months there's always been something I'm running late on according to the checklist I've been using, but I'm all caught up (as long as I stay on top of invites (I promise, hon, if you're reading, I really am going to get those started on-line tomorrow)). It's weird. And nice.
School is taking a new turn for me. We've begun the final phase of the bioethics portion, which is a series of case studies in which we point out the ethical issues/conflicts that are apparent in each case. So everything we've learned so far is being applied now, which for me is scary and awesome. I don't know if you remember from my description from the conference back in September, but it was all medical professionals and hospital administrators who were already super knowledgeable and accustomed to hard cases like these. I'm just hoping I'm giving all the information they expect. I also turned in my outline and thesis (that I really hope works out!) for our 15-20 page paper due in July (yeah, I'm getting married and writing one of the largest papers I've ever written at the same time...that should be fun...). AND, today I booked my flight to Philadelphia for this semester's conference at the beginning of May. We'll be reviewing all the information from this course, asking questions, breaking into small groups as hypothetical ethical committees to review case studies, and doing individual 10 minute presentations in front of the NCBC panel (have I mentioned I'm wedding planning and doing this all at once?...).
Other than that, life is work and seeing friends occasionally, teaching PSR and working out at the Y (Still! I know, right?! Crazy. My goal is getting over 4 mph by the wedding. I'm hovering around 3.8-3.9 on the machines right now, so I'm nearly there. To be truthful...I'm scared of getting up to an actual jogging pace because I feel off balance when I let go of the bars of the treadmill. Silly, right? I just don't like the track as much, I don't feel like I keep up my pace as well. I'll figure something out.). For Valentine's Day/Sts. Cyril & Methodius' feast day, Matt came home and we went on a wonderful date night that Saturday. The next weekend I got to see several TEC friends and took a house warming (rather, apartment warming) bottle of wine and chocolate to a friend's new place. This week was a little rough, and so a friend made me a strong margarita and we watched the new version of Emma together, while another friend and I went to Mass and grabbed coffee before winter reminded us that it's still winter and moved in with a snow storm.
I'm getting excited for Lent to start. I've been so. ready. for it. I am glad it's late, though, in that Easter will most probably be nice weather. I think my parents were pretty wise in our early years of having us not only give up something, but also do extra. It's stuck with me. This year my sacrifice is going to be a bit more general than specific, but basically simplifying my morning and evening routines...not wasting as much time, focusing on important tasks, etc. For prayer, I'm doing something I know a few friends in college did together, which is basically a Lent of novenas. The length of Lent works out well so that if you do 5 consecutive novenas, it takes you right up to Good Friday. I'm excited to learn the power of prayer through doing that.
Blessings to you as we step forward into our Lenten season!
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